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Life’s Lessons : Don’t lie

I remember… holding my ears and doing situps in the hall in our house. A common scene in Indian households I’m sure. But situps at 10:30 in the night is a bit uncommon. Mom was letting hell loose and the sky was coming down on me, I was shivering, a tear flowing down my cheek, sniffing. My dad sitting on the sofa, upset, annoyed, pitiful, I’m not really sure what hewas feeling.I was in the 7th grade and Hindi was one of the many subjects I hated and didn’t score well in (well it was the same for most of thus subjects I had).I was poor in submitting assignments on time and I almost had a reputation for it in the class. So here I was taking chances with my Hindi teacher Ms.Shalini Sharma. A shrewd and clever lady who had the eyes of an eagle (she could spot a guy in the last bench holding the hand of the girl sitting next to him). I had delayed submitting my assignment by almost a couple of weeks leaving me as the only guy who hadn’t submitted the assignment. My mom used to closely track my studies since I was a poor student getting poorer by the day. I hadn’t told her about my missing the deadline to avoid the wrath of her anger. I couldn’t complete the assignment as she’d know the moment I’d do it. And laziness was also a prime reason for my behavior. Least did I know that I had begun irritating my teacher and was brewing up a storm by hiding it all from my mom.We used to have tests every Monday (rendering every Sunday of my life a sad day spent studying). And when we used to get back the answer sheets we were to get it signed by our parents ensuring the fact that our parents were kept in loop about our progress regularly. I hadn’t got my last 2 test marks signed by my parents, telling them that the teacher hadn’t yet corrected the answer sheets. So that was another lie I was carrying. And the teacher was kept away by saying that I had forgotten it time and again and later by claiming that I had lost my answer sheets.So I was living on lies and expecting things to work out fine in the end. I had pushed things to quite a limit when one day I had my bag’s zip stuck and I was fighting with it. This was the zip of the pouch which had my old test answer sheets hidden. It so happened that my mother came to my room to kiss me good night and offered me to help with the zip. I couldn’t refuse enough and the zip opened scattering my answer sheets on the bed. Hell had broken loose. All the answer sheets were looked at and a couple of generous curses were thrown along with the hand across my face (yeah slaps..!! I deserved every bit of it). And then came the shout to my dad and I knew that was the last nail in the coffin. I was told through the scolding that my teacher handwritten to my mom after repeated reminders sent through me to her (which were never delivered). And my mom was expecting this. For all the months through to the end of the year I was checked for each and every update on the progress in the school by mom and dad both. I had lost their trust and it showed clearly. They were shattered that their son had learnt to lie, and lie skillfully. My mother was a renowned teacher in town, and IITian and my dad an engineer in the steel plant. I had embarrassed both of them in front of my teachers and classmates. I realized the folly early on but to restore the faith it took me about 10 months of sincere and truthful conduct no matter how much marks I got or what I did. My bag was checked regularly for any repetition of the past wrong doings. Reports were taken to make sure I realized fheright path and stuck to it, to make sure that I dropped the notion that I could get away with lies, that my parents were smarter than I thought of them to be.It was a lesson learnt the hard way, and a lesson well learnt. And while I won’t claim not having lied to anyone ever, I sure can say I never lied to my parents ever even for a penny.